Pacific Food Security Framework for Action Food Security Indicators Arthur Jorari Statistics for Development Programme

Outline 1. Pacific food security framework 2 Outline 1. Pacific food security framework 2. Food security indicators definition 3. Indicator data processing steps

The Food Secure Pacific Working Group coordinated the drafting of the Framework for Action.

The call action of food security By Pacific Leaders at the 39th Pacific Islands Forum, Niue, 19th – 20th August 2008; In November 2008, organizations convened the Food Secure Pacific Working Group to progress the food security agenda in the Pacific; The Food Secure Pacific Working Group comprised of: the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); the Global Health Institute (GHI) (Sydney West Area Health Service); the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat (PIFS); the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC); the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); and World Health Organization (WHO). This work is part of the Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Integration.

Policy development process The themes, strategies and actions within the Framework for Action were formulated through: Technical consultation; Series of national food summits; and Further discussed and developed at the Pacific Food Summit, Port Vila, 21st – 23rd April 2010: HOPS Meeting, July 2010; PSSC Meeting, March 2011 – technical meeting on Ag. Census; SBS Samoa, April 2011; FIBOS Fiji, November 2011; Workshop on integrating agriculture questions into population and housing censuses, Noumea, May 2012.

Framework themes The Framework outlined seven themes related to improving food security. It’s purpose is to help guide future actions, policy directions and funding decisions on: Leadership and cooperation; Regulatory frameworks, enforcement and compliance and public-private sector collaboration; Enhanced and sustainable production, processing and trading of safe and nutritious local food; Protecting infants and vulnerable groups; consumer empowerment and mobilizing partners; A food security information system; and Enhancing land tenure systems and land-use policies, energy, transport, education and communication systems to underpin food security.

Theme 6 1. Recognizes the need for robust, evidence-based information about food security; 2. Proposes building a common set of food security indicators to monitor and evaluate progress; and 3. Further proposes a method of wide and timely collection and dissemination of effective new ideas and initiatives.

Food security indicators definition

Towards a Food Secure Pacific Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (World Food Summit, 1996/2009)

Food Security Indicators The 4 Dimensions of Food Security: Food Availability Food Access Food Utilization Food Stability

Food Security Indicators The 4 Dimensions of Food Security (2): Food Availability refers to the physical existence of food, be it from own production or on the markets. 2. Food Access is ensured when all households and all individuals within those households have sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Depends on the level of household resources -capital, labour, and knowledge, and also on prices; Function of the physical environment, social environment and policy environment, which determine how effectively households are able to utilize their resources to meet their food security objectives; and Drastic changes in conditions, such as during periods of drought or social conflict, may seriously disrupt food production and threaten the food access of affected households.

Food Security Indicators The 4 Dimensions of Food Security (3): 3. Food Utilization has a socio-economic and a biological aspect. If sufficient and nutritious food is both available and accessible: socio-economic households make decisions/choices on what food to consume (demand) and how the food is allocated within the household; Unequal distribution leads to suffering from food deficiency; the same is true if the composition of the consumed food is unbalanced; biological utilization of food – Focused at the individual level food security, which refers to the ability of the human body to take food and translate it into either energy that is used to undertake daily activities or is stored. Utilization requires not only an adequate diet, but also: a healthy physical environment, including safe drinking water and adequate sanitary facilities (so as to avoid disease); and an understanding of proper health care, food preparation, and storage processes.

Food Security Indicators The 4 Dimensions of Food Security (4): 4. Food Stability refers to the temporal dimension of nutrition security - i.e. the time frame over which food security is being considered. Distinction of chronic food insecurity - the inability to meet food needs on an ongoing basis; and transitory food insecurity when the inability to meet food needs is of a temporary nature; cyclical (where there is a regular pattern to food insecurity, for example, the "lean season" that occurs in the period just before harvest); and temporary (which is the result of a short-term, exogenous shock such as droughts or floods). Also civil conflict belongs to the temporary category, although the negative impact on food security often continues over long periods of time.

Indicator data processing steps

Food Security Indicators What needs to be done: Define/develop minimum indicators required at the national level using NMDI and FAO/WHO lists as the basis for discussion – considering indicators under the 4 dimensions of FS within each of the 6 Pacific FS Policy Themes as well as the underlying factors (or sectors) presented in Figure 1. For example: Theme 3 - enhanced and sustainable production, processing and trading of safe and nutritious local food Food Availability, Food Access, Food Use, Food Stability Agriculture, Fisheries, Trade, Health, etc.

Food Security Indicators What needs to be done (2): 2. Having agreed on the minimum national level indicators, review data availability from existing collection systems, and organize data mining/extraction from these and other secondary sources, which will then form countries’ core database to assist in the development of food security indicators; 3. Following this situational assessment or stock-take of what data are available, identify means/ processes to make such data more readily accessible; 4. This stock-take also serves as a gap analysis highlighting existing data holes and deficiencies - which should provide unambiguous directions of what additional statistics need to be collected to allow the development of key food security indicators;

Food Security Indicators What needs to be done (3): 5. Obtain political sign-off that the collection and compilation of food security related statistics and indicators are a national development priority; 6. Mobilize domestic and international resources to support food security indicators related work; and 7. Look for ways to make such agricultural statistics collections sustainable (and regular), by developing specific stand-alone modules that can be integrated in population and housing censuses or standard HIES surveys.

Food Security Indicators Existing Data Sources: Population Censuses – provides: population numbers to determine target groups and calculate incidence/prevalence rates; a wealth of information on agricultural activities and employment, household income, and household access to land, water and sanitation, and in recent censuses (2010 round) the inclusion of Household questions in some countries on food production and fishing – for all households, in urban areas included, irrespective of primary occupations of household members; HIES - poverty analyses; food consumption and expenditure; diet diaries; and a host of questions pertaining to labor market activities;

Food Security Indicators Existing Data Sources (2): DHS - nutrition measurement, including assessment of Vitamin A deficiencies, and the capture of children’s’ weight and height; Agriculture Censuses and Surveys - representing the main data source for compiling food availability indicators; International Trade Statistics Databases – another main data source for food availability indicators; and Administrative Data Sources/Records

For discussion The way forward in implementing theme 6: Implementation will be at the national level; Coordinated approach by all national partners/stakeholders; TA and other resources - are available?